Guardian Angel
by windscryer
Summary: Dean had promised that forever ago night to always watch over him, never to be there for him. He missed his big brother. Character Death. AUish.


The first time he saw his brother, Sam ignored him.

It was too soon, he told himself.

He had only been here three weeks and he had come to Stanford to leave the old life behind. He knew Dean had come to try to talk him back, to play peacemaker once again, though the only peace that could be found was in physical separation of the youngest and oldest of the Winchester men.

Dean would learn soon enough, Sam told himself, that there were some things that couldn't be fixed.

When he could no longer resist it, he looked back and Dean was gone.

It was for the best, he told himself.

And next time, he'd say hello, he promised.

He never even knew that the pause of turning back to look at his brother kept him from stepping into the road in front of the speeding car.

o.o

The second time, Sam wasn't sure if he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.

Because there was something different about Dean, but Sam couldn't figure out what.

Maybe it was just the passage of time. Two years in a hunter's life could age you as much as ten in a normal one.

He wasn't afraid of Dean trying to talk him back into the hunter's life any more, he was confident he could turn the conversation away to easier topics.

But he wasn't quite sure he was brave enough to go over and start the conversation.

Dean was obviously not feeling courageous either since he didn't approach Sam from his spot under the spreading oak across the quad, opting instead to smile that old familiar crooked grin. A lazy two fingered salute followed and Sam stopped and grinned back.

He was surprised when the old piano from the third story music lab that was being refurbished crashed down onto the sidewalk in front of him and it drew his attention away from his brother.

He glanced over with a blush, fully expecting to see Dean rushing towards him to demand to know if he was okay.

Dean, however, had vanished again.

Sam frowned, scanning the area looking for the back of the old leather jacket Dean refused to give up but it was nowhere in sight.

o.o

The third time Sam saw Dean was the night of his graduation.

He had been searching the crowd looking for a familiar face—only one since the second he might have looked for had made it quite clear that infamous night long ago how he felt about institutions of higher learning—but hadn't been able to pick him out.

And then, when Sam was exiting the building in a crowd of friends preparing to celebrate their survival of college by killing a few brain cells, he saw him, limned in harsh sodium glare by the streetlight he was slouched against.

He straightened and smiled and Sam grinned and freed himself from his friends' grasp, excusing himself and saying he'd meet up with them at their destination.

He only looked away for a second to nod his promise that he'd be there, but in that moment Dean disappeared.

Sam refused to let him escape this time and jogged across the street and around the corner.

He thought he saw the familiar brake lights of a certain classic muscle car, but they disappeared around a corner with a growl before he could be sure.

His friends had already left him so he was forced to hail a cab to the bar.

As he sat there six hours later, staring at a burning wreck on the ten o'clock news and trying to drown the shock of being the only one not inside and therefore here at the bar, he pondered promises made and promises kept.

His brain, still freshly overflowing with lawyerly wisdom and wordplay and trying to distract itself from the trauma of surviving, wondered how he'd never realized that Dean had promised that forever ago night to always watch over him, never to be there for him.

He missed his big brother.

o.o

The fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth times he saw—but didn't talk to—his brother only caused more confusion and a shading of regret.

He'd never meant to let this go on for so long.

He'd never expected to be able to reconnect with his father, but he'd fully anticipated that one day he'd heal the breach with Dean. Once he was done with school and had more time, he'd make a call and try his hand at architecture and construction.

He didn't think he'd burned that bridge instead of just crossing it.

But then the tenth time came, a rainy night in his thirty-seventh year.

It was late. And it was dark. And he was on a road he should not have been traveling on.

He saw a familiar silhouette in his headlights and he hit the brakes, sliding to a stop with a sashaying trunk that had his blood pressure up to a level he hadn't experienced since the last time he'd spoken to his father.

He sat there for a few long moments, staring at the same old leather jacket and sardonic grin and then smiled himself.

Now he'd finally get his chance, he thought. He could finally keep his promise.

He grabbed the door handle and yanked, not taking his eyes off of his brother, refusing to give Dean the chance to slip away like he always did.

Until the door refused to budge and he looked down for just a heartbeat to see it was locked.

He punched the button and climbed out, but the road was empty.

Resignation, annoyance, and frustration washed over him and he slammed the door as he slid back behind the wheel.

Until he rounded the curve and saw the massive bole of a tree laying across the asphalt.

And then he understood.

He had waited too long.

He should have seen it sooner.

After all, he was college educated and even if the pattern was non-existent to others, Sam had a bit of education in his background that most people didn't, had been trained once upon a time to spot patterns that others ignored.

He called to inform the authorities about the tree and then put his car in park, rested his head on the steering wheel, and followed the sky's example and cried.

o.o

Sam's friends whispered that he was too young for a mid-life crisis. Jessica, his wife, began to fear the ringing phone, knowing that one of these days she'd receive a report that her husband's new found adrenaline addiction had claimed his life.

None of them knew that for Sam living only came at the edge of death.

The first time had been to test his theory, to see if the conclusion he'd come to on a rainy highway along the coast had been true or if it had been the product of an overworked, underslept brain.

He'd gotten his proof and had found himself a willing slave to this visceral need.

Besides, he wasn't worried. He trusted his brother. He always had.

And if this was the only way he could see Dean, then so be it.

He knew Dean would always watch out for him.

o.o

The twenty-ninth time he saw his brother he realized that Dean no longer smiled.

Instead a frown, the same disapproving one that Dean had worn from some of Sam's earliest memories, had taken up residence on his brother's face and it made Sam frown too.

This was the only way he knew of to see his brother, but while that was important it was only half of the needed dose.

Sam wanted—_needed—_to see Dean smile.

It took him weeks to figure out what had happened, and since he didn't indulge his hobby of seeking death in all its various entertainment-cloaked forms, his friends and Jessica began to breathe more easily.

Until the day he packed a bag and kissed her on the cheek and said he would call when he stopped for the night.

She watched him go and listened to her heart breaking.

As she closed the door she realized that it wasn't that she'd lost him, but that she'd never quite had him.

o.o

It took him months to undo years of self-imposed deprogramming.

But when he stood over the open-grave-turned-funeral-pyre for the first time since his long-repressed childhood he realized that he was where he belonged.

He felt eyes on him and raised the salt-rock loaded sawed-off but stayed his finger from the trigger when he realized he recognized them.

The smile was back and he couldn't help mirroring it. He didn't speak, the lump in his throat too large and perfectly molded to his vocal cords to allow anything past.

He just nodded and got a nod in return.

o.o

He sees his brother more often now than he ever did in those turbulent times after the tree incident but before he left California for good.

It's not quite the reconciliation he expected, but then very little of his life has turned out the way he thought it would.

In fact, only one thing has now that he thinks of it.

His big brother made a promise to watch out for him.

And Sam knows he always will.


End file.
